Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/70

58 authoritative acts alone the doctrine of original sin and the canon of Holy Scripture rested down to the Council of Trent. In those days the word "infallibility" had not been invented, but the thing existed in its most energetic reality. Perhaps, but for what is called the great Western schism, the word "infallibility" might never have been invented. It was an analytical expression to account for the stability of the Roman faith. In the midst of all contentions both sides believed that the Apostolic See could never be deceived by errors, nor deceive others by erring itself. Why? Because, they said, of the promise given to Peter. But during the time when two and three claimants to the See of Peter divided the nations of Europe, which was his successor? Then the distinction between the infallibility of the See of Peter and the fallibility of the person who sat in it was first introduced. This was the beginning of a second period, or the stage of analysis. Nobody so far departed from the tradition of faith as to deny the stability, solidity, immutability—which is equivalent to the infallibility—of the Apostolic See. They analysed this universal belief into two elements—the see and the person. They distinguished inter sedem et in eâ sedentem—"between the see and him that sat in it." Gerson and certain writers of the Old Sorbonne denied the infallibility of the person, while they